


Colleen Gets a Roommate

by JeannetteRankin



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Female Friendship, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Ladies Defending Ladies, Pre-Femslash, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeannetteRankin/pseuds/JeannetteRankin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pointless fluff of Peggy and Colleen as roommates. Colleen goes on a date with an asshole; Peggy steps in. Or: how to hide your weapons collection from your roommate in a studio apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colleen Gets a Roommate

**Author's Note:**

> Have you not had enough of Peggy being friends with (and kinda gay for) the ladies of New York? How about Peggy defending women and beating up men? You've come to the right place, friend!

Colleen was a sweet girl. That was Peggy's first impression when the wispy blonde woman opened the door to the tiny flat on fifty-first street. Instant assessment: civilian, late twenties, open and kind-hearted face.

“Hello, I called about an hour ago,” She began. The ad had been in the paper that morning, shared flat for very reasonable rate, not far from her place of employment.

“Hey there, are you Peggy?” The girl asked with a friendly smile before letting her in the front door.

Peggy'd been told several times to expect New Yorkers to be harsh and rude, worse than Americans as a whole, even. She'd only known one New Yorker very well, and she hardly expected him to set the pattern, so she'd braced for abrasive bluntness. This girl, though, Colleen, had none of the brashness or standoffishness she'd been wary of. Instead, she seemed determined to make Peggy feel welcome.

By the time she'd given her the tour of the flat—all 300 square feet of it—and cheerfully pointed out the window's view of the back alley and brick wall of the building across the way, Peggy felt more at ease than she had in long time. It wasn't a bad building, really, a little cramped and shabby, but she was looking for incognito, and this seemed like it.

“A charming prospect,” She said, gazing out at the two square yards of brown brick through the panes.

“Yeah, pretty grand, huh?” Colleen asked, smiling, without apology, but also without denying that it was, in fact, a bit dingy.

“I like it,” Peggy said honestly. It was small and the view might be lacking, but it was snug, and everything was arranged and fitted up with neatness and charm. “Have you lived here long?”

“Almost four years. I needed a little space between me and my ma, and I wanted to live in Manhattan, always have wanted a place of my own. To be honest, I never thought about having a roommate before, but my hours got cut back at work, and now I need the money.” She shrugged and grimaced. 

“Well, it suits me fine. I'm working long hours right now, but I just arrived in the city a few days ago and I want a place fast. Can't afford to stay in that hotel much longer.” This was both the truth and a lie. Her salary would have probably covered a place of her own, but she didn't want her name on a lease anywhere. And, to be honest, given the group she'd been assigned to, she hadn't fully made up her mind whether she'd be staying long term. The pig-headed agents she was working with made her think perhaps transferring back and trying her luck again with British Intelligence might be in her future.

“What brings you to the City, then?” was the next inquiry, and of course Peggy had been expecting it. Keep the cover story simple, and tell as much of the truth as possible.

“Work, actually. I was overseas, but with the peace, I've been transferred to the New York office.”

“Oh, what kind of work is it?”

“Phone company.” As boring as possible, to discourage further questions. Colleen seemed gratifyingly uninterested.

“Alright, well,” Colleen gestured around. “What do you think of the place? Want to be my roommate?”

“Just like that?” Peggy asked, guardedly.

“Yeah, I know how hard it is to find a place, I'm not gonna make you wait while I interview 12 other girls. I've been through that myself. You seem alright, and, hey, if it doesn't work out, we'll call it splits at the end of the month, no hard feelings.” She held out a hand. Peggy considered for a moment that it could be a trick of some kind, but her gut told her otherwise. And when it came to potential allies, she always trusted her gut.

“In that case,” Peggy, smiling, took it and shook it firmly. “Alright. Flatmate.”

*

It turned out that it _did_ suit her. Suited both of them, actually. Days that Colleen worked, she would come home right around the time that Peggy left in the morning. Peggy was gone all day and usually into the evening, so Colleen could sleep in the afternoons as she liked. They managed days off amicably.

The first few weeks had their awkwardness, compounded by the fact that Peggy was figuring out how to keep her work and her weapons arsenal a secret from someone she shared 300 square feet with. The worst of those moments was when she'd been cleaning her gun one morning before heading into the office, thinking she had plenty of uninterrupted time.

She had the brushes, cotton swabs, and cleaning solution laid out neatly on an oil cloth on the bed, and was just taking the clip out of the gun when she heard a quick step in the hall and Colleen's key in the lock. There was no time for a good plan, or any plan. She crumpled everything up in a cloth—violating at least three rules of gun safety that her old lieutenant would have skinned her alive for—and shoved it under the bed, then threw herself down and tried to look natural.

Unfortunately, when you only have about half a second to “look natural” and the person you're trying to look natural in front of walks in a quarter of a second of the way through, well, that's something not even Peggy can pull off convincingly.

“Hey,” Colleen said, stopping in the doorway and eyeing Peggy oddly.

Peggy reclined on the bed in her awkward pose and tried to act as if she hadn't just been doing anything odd. “Hello,” She said.

“Am I interrupt anything?” She asked, putting her back down and tossing her coat over the room's chair.

“No, not at all,” At least that came out in an appropriately casual voice, although combined with the fact that she couldn't move off the bed, lest Colleen see what she'd just stashed underneath it, probably didn't do much toward convincing her.

“I did, didn't I?” Colleen said with a slightly wicked grin that Peggy hadn't seen before on her normally-gentle roommate. “Well, if you're reading a dirty novel or something, don't mind me. I need a shower, anyway, after that shift, so I'll just go do that. I'll be gone for at least ten minutes.” She actually winked at the end of that sentence as she took her towel and robe up in her arms.

“What? No,” Peggy started, blushing furiously at the implication of Colleen thinking she was doing..that. But Colleen just waved her hand dismissively and with a final smug look over her shoulder, disappeared out the door toward the bathroom.

Peggy, still red-faced, made sure she had her gun properly stowed and managed to be ready and out the door well before that ten minutes was up. She definitely couldn't face that twice in the same morning.

Hiccoughs like that one aside, though, she was satisfied with her living situation, and, a few months later when she realized she had decided to stick with her current post for the time being, she didn't seriously consider moving out. The idea of finding an efficiency of her own, and coming home every day to an empty, silent room, held no appeal. No, she'd stay with Colleen as long as she'd have her.

Peggy learned a lot of other things about her flatmate in those few months. Colleen loved mystery novels, and was always liable to have the yellowed paperback of something or other in her hand. She was a picky eater, and would hardly ever accept when Peggy offered to share anything she was making, her sleep schedule was a mess due to her working the night shift three days a week, and occasionally picking up a swing shift. She'd agreed that Peggy could have the bed nights, so on her days off she always offered to leave her the bed and sleep on the chaise. Colleen didn't seem to have many friends, which suited Peggy, as it meant fewer people for her to lie to.

In fact, Colleen didn't seem to have much luck, socially. The men of New York were forever disappointing her in one way or another, though Peggy couldn't understand why. If she were a man, she'd snap Colleen up and never let her go.

One cancelled a Saturday date only an hour before he was supposed to come pick her up. “What a creep!” Colleen ranted after she'd hung up the phone on the guy.

“Did he give a reason?” Peggy asked, annoyed on her friend's behalf.

“He said he 'forgot' that he had plans already,” She scoffed, pacing up and down in the tiny space of the living room in her stocking feet.

“Well, he's an idiot, then.” Peggy rejoined, flipping through her magazine. “Where did you find him, anyway?”

Colleen let out an exasperated breath, putting one hand on her hip. “He's the best friend of my friend's boyfriend. Which you'd think would be a real solid recommendation.”

“You'd think,” Peggy agreed, facetiously. “Well, forget him.”

“Yeah, I guess. But I don't just want to sit around here doing nothing.” She huffed, annoyed. Then a smile broke out on her face. “You know what, I don't need a man. Let's you and me go out!” She said, excitedly.

“What, go out where?” Peggy was relaxed and had already taken off her skirt from work, sitting in her robe. She wasn't sure she felt like getting dressed and hitting the town.  


“I don't care, anywhere! I just can't bear another Saturday night of sitting at home listening to the radio.”

Colleen just looked so dispirited, Peggy couldn't leave her like that. She put her magazine and pretended to think it over for a moment. “Alright, here's what we'll do: let's go for ice cream and see what's playing at the Prometheus.” The Prometheus was a discount movie theater in mid-town that Colleen had mentioned a few times.

Colleen's whole face lit up and she gave Peggy a great big grin. “It's a date!”

Peggy smiled back, glad of her decision. Even if she was tired from the office all day, it was definitely worth a little extra energy to cheer up her friend. “Let me just throw something on.”

Colleen made her sit through a third-rate Sherlock Holmes movie starring Basil Rathbone, and Peggy's only recourse was to viciously mock the terrible fake british accents in a whisper to in Colleen's ear through the whole feature. In turn, Colleen laughed at her priggishness as they walked back to the flat all the way home.

*

Most of Colleen's disappointments in love were like that: a man dropping her, or proving too annoying to put up with, and ending in her cajoling Peggy into going to the movies.

One was worse.

It was another Friday night, and Peggy had just been about to go out to eat, when Colleen came home unexpectedly early. She'd only left an hour before, and Peggy was about to make a crack about setting a new world record for fastest beginning and end to a relationship, when she turned and saw Colleen.

Her mascara had run a bit, though her eyes were dry now, her hair was mussed, and the seam at one shoulder of her blouse was torn. Peggy took in her appearance and the way she clutched her arms around herself. In a heartbeat, Peggy stiffened and felt her face go cold and stern in a way usually reserved for missions.

“What happened?” She asked. Colleen flinched and Peggy realized how harsh her tone had been. She tried to take the anger out of her voice. “Sorry. Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Colleen told her, a little shakily.

“Here, sit down.” Colleen let her guide her over to the chaise lounge and settle the knit blanket around her shoulders. “You're shaking,” she observed, hoping that the neutral statement would elicit an explanation. Peggy's mind was already racing through the awful possibilities.

“Sammy; I thought he was such a nice guy.” She drew the blanket around herself a little tighter. “What an ass. Got so bored at dinner I said I had to go home early. The he tried to get me to kiss him and when I told him where he could stick it, grabbed my shirt,” She fingered the torn seam at her shoulder. “And called me a bitch. Right there on the street!”

_I'm going to kill him_ , Peggy managed to hold the words back behind her teeth. “So I take it he won't be coming around again,” was the most moderate thing she could manage to say.

“Oh, don't worry, I told him to scram,” Colleen told her, looking angry. “He'll never get the time of day from me again, I can promise you that.” It wasn't enough, but it mollified Peggy a little. At least Colleen was angry, rather than scared. The next step, undoubtedly, was comfort for Colleen, and a chance to cool her temper for herself.

“Alright, well, since you're done for the the night, I'll draw you a hot bath.” She patted Colleen on the shoulder and left her.

It was far too easy to scare Mrs. Waverly from down the hall out of the bathroom, where she'd been preening in the mirror. Peggy ran the tub, taking the few minutes break to compose herself before she went back into their apartment.

“Bath's ready. Use all the hot water you like, I'll take the blame if the Waverlys complain.”

Colleen seemed a little more composed than before, now looking just exhausted. “Thanks, Peg,” she said, clasping Peggy's hand in a startling grip for a moment and giving her a weary smile.

They both slept in the murphy bed that night. Colleen offered to take the chair, but Peggy declined.

“Out with the old and good riddance,” Colleen declared the next morning, sipping her coffee over the paper. She seemed much better than last night, and seemed ready to put the whole business behind her. Peggy didn't feel the same.

“That's what you get for dating a newspaperman; rubbish lot,” Peggy observed all too casually, eyeing Colleen carefully for her reaction.

“Oh no, Sammy worked at Denford's. It's electricians that are scum.” Colleen rejoined.

“Denford's, that's right,” Peggy said quietly, sipping her tea, and let the subject drop.

It really wasn't much of a challenge. The firm was in the phone book and they were a relatively small outfit. She had actually laid eyes on the man a week ago, so it was a simple matter of lying in wait at a conveniently located sandwich shop with a large glass front window across the way.

She'd managed to sneak out of the office a bit early, predicting that she could get there well before the electricians would be off for the day, and she was right. She'd only been about forty-five minutes sipping her coffee and pretending to read when saw the first wave of men across the street, mostly wearing button-downs over cheap trousers, started to emerge.

After the first dozen or so, she spotted him. Sammy. He was tall, and rather good-looking. He looked younger than she'd thought from the earlier glimpse she'd had, perhaps only in his mid twenties. That was encouraging; perhaps he could still learn, if someone would be kind enough to give him a proper lesson.

Peggy's Aunt Enda had always told her she should be a teacher.

Sammy wasn't too bright, and fancied himself a charmer, so a simple ruse of “smile flirtatiously and ask for help with her car that won't start” was more than enough to lure him away from his compatriots and into an alleyway in the middle of the block.

Once they were well out of sight of any passersby and she was sure the others had moved off without him, she turned, planted her feet, and crossed her arms. “Now, then.”

He looked confused, probably at the abrupt shift from friendly-and-helpless-girl to a decidedly different tone. “Where's your car at, darling?” He asked, rubbing his hands together, rather pathetically still thinking that he was going to get some action out of her.

“You're not here about a car,” She informed him, putting one hand on her hip and sliding the other to where she had a knife sheathed under her waistband.

“Oh, yeah?” He drawled, an ugly smirk curling his mouth. Had she thought he was pathetic only a moment ago? That was too charitable a word to use on him now. “What can I do for you, then?”

“You're here to address your conduct of last Friday night, approximately 8:30 pm.”

“What?” He asked, face going blank in confusion. “Last Friday?”

“Yes,” She said, slowly, as to an imbecile. “On an outing with Miss Colleen O'Brien. I'm afraid you were quite rude to the lady.”

This seemed to jog some memory inside what passed for his brain. “What, that girl Colleen?” He abruptly shifted gears, lip sneering as he flatly told her. “Whatever she says I did, I didn't do it. I never touched her.”

“Let me explain something to you, Sammy,” she infused his name with all the venom she felt bubbling up from her stomach. “If your first impulse to describe your date with a girl is 'I don't know what she said, but I didn't do it,' it's safe to say that you have not behaved like a gentleman.”

“Well, excuuuuse me, lady, who the hell made you the judge of what I do? Y'know what? I don't have to stand here and take this.” With that he turned contemptuously around and took a step as if to storm off.

Peggy had been ready for just such a move. Sweeping out one leg, she caught his ankle just as his weight was going to come down on it. He stumbled and she slammed into him, putting him down on his rear in a pile of garbage, his back against the wall. In an instant, her knife was in his face. She gave him just long enough to see the fear glint in his eyes before she pressed the blade, delicately, against his throat.

He stiffened at the feeling of the steel pressing against his, the look on his face instantly going from shock to terror. “L-listen, wait, listen!” He shouted in protest.

“Shhhh,” she cut him off, laying her finger over his lips in a gesture to silence him. “Speak softly, there's a good lad.”

“Look, look, just let me go, okay?” He asked, voice quivering, pulling his chin up to try and get his neck away from the blade.

“In due time,” She told him, equitably. “First, I have a few conditions.”

“Okay, okay, whatever you say.”

“I'm _so_ glad to hear you say that,” she said with false levity, letting the fury spill out only from her eyes. “You're going to do a few things. First, you're going to learn to improve your listening skills when it comes to the girls you date. When they say they want to go home, you're going to be extremely courteous and put them in a taxi or walk them to the subway. Secondly, you're going to forget that my friend Colleen exists. You're not going to drop by, you're not going to call or check up on her. If I have even the suspicion that you've come near her, I'm coming back for you, and you are going to become much more _intimately_ acquainted with this knife. Do we understand each other?” She paused and he gulped then nodded, ever so slightly, choking out a noise which seemed to indicate agreement. 

“Good,” She told him. “And lastly, I would strenuously recommend that you never lay hands on a woman in anger again in your life. The next one might have a friend who's not so forgiving.”

With that, she pulled the knife away from his throat. He gasped and put his hand up to protectively cover where her knife had been. He scrambled backward to try and get away from her, muttering “Okay, okay, okay,” over and over.

“We're in agreement, then,” She told him, before turning and leaving him there in the garbage.

*

By the following Thursday, Colleen seemed to have completely rebounded. Peggy, exhausted but satisfied from a day that had actually involved tangling with a enemy, even if he had only been a pathetic escapee from SSR detention, had barely come in the door when Colleen, hair half in rollers, bounced up and accosted her. “Guess what!”

“Oh, I forgot it was your night off.”

“Not only that, but I have a date,” Colleen said, proudly.

“Not Sammy,” Peggy asked cuttingly before she could stop herself.

“That jerk? Hell no! This is a new guy, met him at that donut shop on 3rd, and he wants to take me to the _theater_ ,” she said the last word with dramatic flair, dropping back down at the vanity table where she'd been doing her hair.

“Another new fellow already? You move fast,” Peggy observed affectionately, stepping out of her pumps to rest her aching feet.

“I hope this one's nice,” Colleen declared, taking out another curler and placing it gently in it's slot in the curler box on the dresser.

_He'd better be,_ Peggy thought to herself, with grim satisfaction. As long as the men of New York were going to keep disappointing Colleen O'Brien, Peggy would have to stick around to make sure they didn't get out of line.


End file.
